r/AskALiberal

As we near the midterms, I can’t help but feel the malaise between the progressive/DSA and the liberal centrist wings of the party comes down to a fundamental disagreement on whether it’s practically possible or even desirable to make the Democratic party’s chief goal to permanently live in a political time capsule from decades ago.

I lean more towards the DSA wing largely because they seem to recognize the perils of existential risks like wealth inequality, climate change, pandemic risks, and AI. I haven’t really heard liberals provide a vision for the inevitable future where our current factory farming model of agriculture physically will break down, or a future of what happens if tech broligarchs achieve AGI and use it to permanently disempower all of us and make us defacto slaves, regardless of UBI. The socialist/DSA folks usually vary between pausing AI or stopping its development entirely, alongside international treaties. From what I’ve seen of liberals like Ezra Klein and The Economist, they seem to be on the path of continuing to accelerate AI development while also supporting vague “guardrails”.

Another issue that grinds me about liberals is they seem totally impotent on the issue of massive wealth inequality. When any notion of taxing the rich, wealth taxes, implementing rent control, or capital controls, or anything to inconvenience the wealth and power of oligarchs is proposed, liberals vigorously explain why it’s impossible to check their power in any way whatsoever.

At the end of the day, it sadly seems to me that the Democratic establishment’s policy agenda is to do minor policy tweaks while we barrel face first into a concrete wall at 200 mph. I genuinely hope I’m mistaken and can be proven wrong, but I just don’t see the path to addressing these issues from the centrist liberal democrats.

non-Americans, Canadians in particular keep asking this over and over again. What are the actual reasons?

Maybe I am missing something here, but people are like mad that this donation counts as a tax break, and some claim it is to dump overvalued stock. To me, it seems like this would only be bad if he is doing it in return for a favor or something like that, but fewer seem to mention that. Anyway, so why is Michael Dell a bad person for doing this? Shouldn't we want more billionaires to give money to children?

For me it was how we reacted to Covid based on how we were politically aligned. It signaled that we no longer believed in a shared objective reality.

Fun hypothetical.

Mine would be: "This is God speaking, vote Blue".

I don't want the war to happen (I'm on the left myself). It's probably not worth it knowing we have previously used diplomacy and it actually worked for at least a while. but I'm starting to doubt which method would work best

This can be things he did in his official capacity as president or using his voice to put out harmful rhetoric

Would you say Donald Trump is 1. a weak President in terms of quality (as in, "this sports player is weak!") OR 2. a weak President in terms of resolve, presence, authority etc.?

I'm the person in the family who reads the school newsletter cover to cover, so I end up knowing what the district is actually doing, and this year what got me was the breakfast thing. A few states went to universal free school breakfast, not means-tested, just, show up, eat. Participation went up, especially among kids whose families had nothing, which was the whole point. The community college version already ran in Tennessee and Oregon, tuition-free, and enrollment jumped mostly for low-income students. Pair that with the pre-K expansion places are trying and a kid's zip code stops deciding whether they get a real start or any shot at what comes after.

It's concrete and it's been tested, and where it exists people like it. So my question is why this feels like a second-tier issue nationally. Is it that it doesn't fit into the bigger narratives people are already fighting about, or is there something structural I'm missing about why it doesn't get the same air as other education stuff?

First, this isn't an attempt to mollify the policy. IDC if they were all smuggling drugs, this is an illegal policy, should be considered CAH, and multiple people should go to jail for it.

Now why haven't the countries of origin of the deceased made more out of these deaths? Pressure from the admin? Were the deceased actually drug smugglers? Are they unidentified victims bc of no/bad records? Were they people purposely living off the grid/undocumented foreigners?

I just think it's weird that my countries aren't saying more about the deaths of their own people and I'm looking into insights into why that would be

You know how it is: our population is ageing, our industry is getting outcompeted, we suddently have to find money to fund our own defence, France looks like it's about to implode because of its debt, far-right populists are rising everywhere, Trump being Trump, end of cheap energy from Russia, boomers willing to throw the next generation under the bus just to protect their pensions

When people talk about the Department of Homeland Security, the conversation regularly focuses on ICE and its civil immigration enforcement directorate staffed by the 12,000 to 16,000 Deportation officers that we're all probably familiar with. However, DHS covers a variety of other law enforcement positions. What do you think the current public perception is like for the other 66,000 civilian law enforcement personnel under the DHS such as

> HSI investigators

> Border Patrol agent, CBP officers, Air/Marine agents

> FPS officers and investigators

> TSA's Investigators and Air Marshals

> Secret Service Police and Special Agents

Thought?

Many, if not most, public schools in America only offer one or two languages other than English for kids to study. Usually, one of these languages is Spanish. However, there are tons of languages that are useful to study. Also, unlike lots of school subjects, language-learning is almost “eusocial” in its benefits: it’s best for some students to learn Spanish, other students to learn Chinese, others to learn French, etc. Since community colleges and online resources for language learning are fairly accessible in lots of places, and since most students just get the equivalent of a Duolingo proficiency in a language anyways, should schools be more flexible with foreign language offerings?

And no, for those claiming this is an argument that immigrants are leeches, I am well aware of the fact the overwhelming majority of immigrants pay taxes and are net contributors.

This is far more fundamental than that. It goes to human nature. We see this pattern again and again, from the American right’s flip to being anti-welfare as soon as civil rights were expanded, to the far right surge in Europe in response to surging immigration, to the American right’s second apparent u-turn on social spending as Trump came on stage and they adopt hawkishness on immigration.

This to me is, unfortunately, just human nature. When a society becomes increasingly diverse, it loses social glue that once bound it together. It atomizes. And that’s a fine and acceptable price to pay for increasing multiculturalism and plurality. But it is a cost, and I believe many on the left refuse to acknowledge it. As societies become more diverse, people‘s appetite for higher taxes declines. They generally want less welfare state, more individualism, and more decentralization of state power and authority. It seems Milton Friedman was proven right again, but for the wrong reasons. It’s not immigrants aren’t a fiscal drain because they simply aren’t. It’s a society‘s capacity for maintaining social democracy decreases as it increasingly becomes more diverse and individualist.

It's impossible to understate America's influence but can such influences go too far? I have definitely seen people complain about how Americanized their country's politics have become with the country even adopting American style Identity politics and culture wars. This extends over to social justice where I have also seen people complaining about how Americanized it is. One example is LGBT movements and spaces where I have seen disillusioned LGBT people complain about it being too US centric in terms of narratives and adopting Americanized Frameworks which doesn't take into account other countries local histories, culture and politics This comment sums up such sentiment much better than I could

So to what to extent is this an Issue?

Over the past 40 years, shifting priorities on economic policy, corporate regulation, and the role of government have created a cycle of competing agendas. Has this back-and-forth helped working-class Americans and the middle class, or has it undermined long-term progress, public trust, and political stability?

There’s a million reasons someone might choose to move to the United States. Some love the culture, some simply want more money. However, I believe there is a wide expectation for us immigrants to ‘integrate’. By integration, I mean falling in line with American beliefs and values.

Personally, I do not believe that someone should be expected to change their beliefs simply because they are not compatible with what the government has mandated. What do you think?

The recent Cornell sexual assault case got me thinking about how consent laws should address alcohol and intoxication. Most people agree that someone who is unconscious or incapacitated cannot consent, but the gray area seems much harder to legislate.

(Noting I used AI to help draft the below)

A few challenges come to mind:

Voluntary intoxication: At what point should someone who voluntarily drinks become legally incapable of consenting?

Existing relationships: If one partner is significantly more intoxicated than the other, when should sex potentially constitute a criminal offense?

Perceived vs. actual intoxication: What if someone appears sober but is actually extremely intoxicated? Should the law consider what their partner reasonably believed?

Both parties intoxicated: How should the law handle situations where both people are similarly intoxicated?

Proving it afterward: Without toxicology results or witnesses, how can intoxication and capacity to consent be established beyond a reasonable doubt?

There’s also an important distinction between behavior that’s morally questionable and behavior that should be criminal. How would you legislate consent in situations involving alcohol while protecting victims and establishing clear, enforceable standards?